You’ll get a blacked out Earth with a New Mombassa scan on it with a single (fake) skull placemarker I put on it.

This KML can’t be viewed in Google Maps, since Google Maps uses an entirely different method for displaying image overlays, but I might eventually be able to get that to work.

Anyway, if people were interested, they could load that KML, add placemarkers for stuff they’ve found, save them as KML files, mail them to me, and then I’d add them to the network layer.

As long as I keep the Earth coordinates of the image overlay the same, all the bookmarks should translate to any Google Maps version I might be able to create later.

The one thing I’m not sure of right now is scale— I don’t want to start collecting placemarks for the network layer until I can size the map properly. Is there anyone who can give me an idea of what the scale of the map should be, based on an in-game observation?

(I can’t do it myself, as I still don’t have the game yet).

UPDATE: I've repositioned the ODST map actually onto Mombasa in Kenya, on top of a likely-looking intersection that (mostly) fit was was in the map. I've scaled it so that the widths of the city streets match. That makes the whole map only a third of a kilometer wide, though, so I'm betting that scale is wrong.

Next steps would involve getting a higher resolution image and possibly converting it to a polygon to make it viewable in Google Maps as well as Google Earth.

Comments

Nice map. The scale you have is quite wrong, though. The area in the upper right is Kikowani station, and the area where you start is around Tayari.
I set a waypoint ingame, and then matched the map to the distance to the waypoint, and I found that width of one of the squares is about 360 metres, which, when compared to the modern day Mombasa, does seem rather large.
After I resized the image to the scale shown ingame, I noticed that you can't really line up the named areas(Tayari, Kikowan, and Kizingo) with the areas in modern Mombasa. It's not even close.

[quote=measter]Nice map. The scale you have is quite wrong, though. The area in the upper right is Kikowani station, and the area where you start is around Tayari.

I set a waypoint ingame, and then matched the map to the distance to the waypoint, and I found that width of one of the squares is about 360 metres, which, when compared to the modern day Mombasa, does seem rather large.

After I resized the image to the scale shown ingame, I noticed that you can't really line up the named areas(Tayari, Kikowan, and Kizingo) with the areas in modern Mombasa. It's not even close.[/quote]

I'm sure the scale I've got is wrong-- like I said, I only lined it up according to street widths.

I don't actually have the game yet, so I have no idea what the in-game place names are to try and match them up with real-life locations. However, I wouldn't be surprised if there was no way to make them match anyway, and that even if they did, there would be no relation between that matchup and the map's actual scale.

What I need is a length in world units for some item that's visible on the map (like a city block) and then a conversion rate of world units to meters in order to set the scale.

2) If "ODST" is now a folder listed under My Places you can continue. If it's listed under Temporary Places then you probably want to select it, choose Cut, then select My Places and Paste to move it from Temporary Places to My Places.

3) Once "ODST" is in My Places, click the arrow next to it to expose its subitems. You'll see a folder also called ODST.

4) Click the arrow to the left of the "ODST" folder to expose its subitems. You'll see three items-- An image overlay called "Black Earth", a waypoint called "Skull Here" and an image overlay called "New Mombassa".

5) Double-click the "New Mombassa" item to zoom to the location. If you see anything other than the ODST map overlaid on a black background, check to make sure all your other layers and places are off.

6) Scroll and zoom around to locate a place where you know there's an interesting item in the game. Choose "Placemark" from the "Add" menu, and while the info sheet for the placemark is open, position the placemark where you want it on the map. Then give your placemark a name and description, and click OK in the placemark's info sheet.

When you're done, you can select all your placemarks, put them in a folder, and export the folder as a .kml or .kmz file. If you send it to me, I'll add it to the network link, and everyone who subscribes to the network link in Google Earth will see all those placemarks when they load the link.

7) Right-click the network link in My Places and choose "Refresh" to reload link items from the remote site.